I really wish I always had excellent leftovers waiting for me at lunch, but of course I don't all the time. Today, though, I did – which was a crucial time-saving advantage since I was busy packing for this conference.

Inspired in part by a recipe in the excellent cookbook Asian Tofu, last night I blanched and blitzed a bunch of the greens that were about to wilt to create a tofu version of palak paneer. And there was just enough left over for lunch today. Roasted cauliflower (also left over from last night), store-bought pickled mango, and homemade yogurt drizzled on top made up the rest. It ain't pretty, but I could eat this every week.

Maybe that's a good thing. Apparently it doesn't seem to matter if you go low-fat or low-carb if you want to eat healthy/lose weight. But you do need to eat real, whole foods, according to the latest study published Tuesday in JAMA. And my home-cooked dinner from the night before was strictly made up of real food.

Another health story in the New York Times returns to my whole existential thought exercise on coconut oil from a few weeks ago. From the story: "...misleading conclusions that saturated fats do not affect the risk of developing and dying from cardiovascular diseases have largely resulted from studies that were done in good faith but failed to take into account what people who avoided saturated fats ate in their place." Where things get crazy is in the comments. People really love their paleo regimen. Loosely related: I heard that coconut jerky is a thing and I'm sure how I feel about it.

Also, it's the Year of the Dog. If you want to take a deep dive into Chinese cuisine in the Bay Area, give this San Francisco Chronicle piece a read (it does have a paywall but a paper's gotta do what it’s gotta do to pay its people).

And one last dispatch from San Francisco before I try to squeeze all the things I want to pack into a carryon bound for NYC: I love mochi and am a little more than happy that b. patisserie is getting into the mochi game.